Alois Alzheimer was a neuropathologist and psychiatrist responsible for the identification of a cerebral cortex abnormality known today as Alzheimer´s disease. He was born in 1864 in Bavaria, South Germany and studied medicine in Berlin, Aschaffenburg Tubingen and Wurzburg. He graduated in 1887 and began working in a state asylum where his interest in the cortex of the human brain began.http://www.alz.co.uk/alzheimers/aa.html

Alzheimer and his colleague Franz Nissl worked together while both working at the asylum. Together between 1906 and 1918 they published the six volume work Histologische und histopatologische Arbeiten über die Grosshirnrinde (Histologic and Histopathologic Studies of the Cerebral Cortex). The study details their investigation of the neurosystem, particularly the normal and pathological anatomy of the cerebral cortex.http://www.whonamedit.com/doctor.cfm/177.html

After his time at the asylum Alzheimer sought a post where he could combine research and medical practice. He became research assistant to Emil Kraepelin at the Munich medical school. It was here that Alzheimer identified an ``unusual disease of the cerebral cortex´´. In a post-mortem of a woman who had suffered from memory loss and hallucinations only at age 50, he identified nerve tangles in the brain that had never been described before. Kraeplin made Alzheimer the namesake for the newly discovered disease.http://www.alz.co.uk/alzheimers/aa.html

In addition to his discovery of the disease which bears his name, Alzheimer also performed notable microscopial investigations of various neural diseases, among them brain changes in epilepsy.http://www.whonamedit.com/doctor.cfm/177.html

In 1912, Alzheimer was awarded an appointment as full professor of psychiatry at the University of Breslau by King Wilhelm II of Prussia. However he fell ill on the train ride and was hospitalized upon arrival. His health deteriorated rapidly, and although he was never able to fufill his University appointment, he spent the last three years of his life on research and clinical study. He died at the age of 51 of cardiac failure.http://www.whonamedit.com/doctor.cfm/177.html